Custom Cambros

There is a company called Cambro that manufactures bins and containers for the foodservice industry. Rolando told me they were the best way back in the beginning and we started using them from day 1 along with “fish buckets,” (the white containers left over from fish deliveries, a favorite of chefs to store food), and “Delis” (pint and quart sized plastic containers that chefs use to store everything from herbs to sauces).

At this point we are a super power user of Cambros. Chris has had some folks from the company in and they’ve never quite seen anything like it. You see we use Cambros to transport food within the company. We don’t use any disposable products to transport food. Instead we have a closed system. Food that is delivered from the commissary to a restaurant is delivered in a Cambro, typically a “third pan” shown above. So we have thousands and thousands of these containers. And they’re really expensive, some cost over $30 each. And see that lid in the picture, it’s called a “grip lid.” At the start it was a special order item but we buy so many now our suppliers keep them in stock.

Cambros are great for many things. They stack and pack really nicely because they are squared out. So we get the most use of our refrigeration. That lets us operate in a tidy organized fashion, but it also allows us to minimize waste and energy use. They are a nice heat-proof acrylic, so they’re pretty safe and don’t impart any flavor to our food.

This picture is of a sample that came from Cambro. They’re going to run a custom 3rd pan that has Clover’s logo on it. Really cool, hunh? This was a test sample. There are going to be a few in the end. Red will be for onion or onion-y use only. There will be other colors (e.g., for fruit). We can’t wait. Anything you think it should say?

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